Mr. Rant says I thought we were past “female figures don’t sell”.

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Apparently, it’s 1950 and boys don’t play with girl action figures. At least, that’s the way Mattel still sees it for a few of their lines.

If you are a fan of the Secret Saturdays or Batman: Brave and the Bold, don’t get your hopes up for a complete set of characters. Mattel’s display cases were noticeably absent a Drew Saturday, a main character on the show, and Black Canary or Huntress from the crazy-popular Brave and the Bold cartoon. When asked, Mattel said the lines are primarily intended for young boys, and no female characters were planned. In the Brave and the Bold: Action League line, a poster was shown with a ton of new characters and not a woman in sight.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but I thought we were over the idea that boys don’t play with girl action figures? There are plenty of female characters showing up in GI Joe, Star Wars, DCUC, DCIH, MU, Cars, and Wrestling figures – heck, even Transformers is starting to work in a few! And when it comes to Action League, why does Mattel want to imitate the success that Hasbro has had in that scale and then cut women out of the line immediately? Part of the appeal of those figures is getting everyone. And the last time I checked, everyone includes Scarlett, Arcee, Ms. Marvel, and Princess Leia.
Sure, collecting and playing with action figures, is primarily a boy sport. There are girls who partake, but the majority of the kids I see in the action figure aisle are boys. And I get that young boys tend to stick with figures of their favorite guy characters, but isn’t this the modern space age of 2009? When toys aren’t only collected by kids but also by adults, and action figures are even more acceptable for everyone to play with?
We live in a very diverse world now, and our kids share more in that diversity than we can probably even understand. Gone are the days of the “white man” saving the “damsel” from danger. Women share the burden of adventure in our cartoon drama’s just as much as men and they usually look better doing so. If you don’t believe me, check out Brave and the Bold episode no. 16, “Night of the Huntress,” and then tell me you don’t think Mattel should make Huntress or Black Canary figures. Kids aren’t stupid; even young boys can appreciate the kick-ass-ness of those characters.
Mattel shouldn’t look at a line and dismiss its ability to have female characters. At the very least, they should pepper some throughout the line and see how they sell.

-Mr. Rant

16 thoughts on “Mr. Rant says I thought we were past “female figures don’t sell”.”

    1. and I mean that in the way that we have to bring it up and the mindset hasn’t changed yet

      1. We gotcha.

        The part that Mr. Rant hit on the head is them emulating Hasbro and then making changes. Some of the squad figures do languish, but it’s not because of girl figures.

  2. The only toy line I used to collect was the Lion King and, guess what? It was incredibly devoid of female characters, the only one being a hyena. Um… I may be incorrect here, but didn’t a lot of that film star Nala as a co-star? Where the heck is my Nala figure, Mattel? Yeah, I’m still bitter about it. The only thing that even came close to placating me was a Burger King young Nala toy that was in scale with the young Simba toy but I’ve always felt cheated by the absence of a grown up Nala.
    Yes, it’s lame, but, seriously. What the heck?

    2. I REMEMBER THAT!!!!! I had Simba (a grown-up Simba who I loved to play with) and a few other characters, but no Nala!!!

      >:(

  3. that’s why we should all be buying the four horsemen’s 7th Kingdom figures, right? all women!!

          1. I have the blue cat girl coming and I’ll figure out a way to get CCora too.

            And I will work on them piece by piece when money frees up. Sadly, it’s the 4H/Mattel that are taking the money out of the 4H’s mouths.

    2. But aren’t they all animal-women? That’s not really the same as a Batman B&B Huntress!

      1. oh you silly, precious woman…there are five cats, an elemental, a mutant, and two humans…so no they aren’t all animal women

  4. This is something I always liked about the old RGB line. They got a Janine out to us, two, in fact.

    Hopefully, Mattel will do the same for both the film and the cartoon.

    1. I’d rather have the first movie, toned down Janine if we only get one movie one.

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